It is known in the art relating to medical treatments of wounds to flush or wash the area around the wound with fluids that must be collected thereafter. Additionally, surgical procedures to treat open wounds of a patient almost always require the control and containment of blood or other bodily fluids flowing from the wound.
The resulting waste or irrigation fluids need to be contained for later transport and disposal because of possible biological or chemical contaminants that may be in the fluids. For example, the fluids may be contaminated with a number of pathogens, which could be hazardous to health care workers and others, including AIDS and Hepatitis C.
Prior art irrigation basins have several disadvantages with regards to containment, transport and disposal of collected waste fluids. One such disadvantage is that the fluids often splash onto the hard, nonabsorbent interior of a basin during the irrigation procedure, causing fluids to spray back upon the patient or health care worker. Additionally, a substantial amount of fluid, may be collected during the treatment process, making it difficult for a health care worker to move the basin without spillage.
Prior art basins too often contain rigid structures in their interior section designed to support various appendages or other features, e.g. head, neck, ankles, wrists, arms, legs, or the like, of a person's body during treatment. These structures are usually rigidly attached to the basin's interior. This can cause a problem in aligning a patient's particular feature for maximum comfort during treatment.
In addition to irrigating and cleaning a wound, medical treatment of such wound often requires the use of surgical tools that must be kept sterilized up until they are needed. Prior art techniques used to accomplish this task involve sterilizing the tools and transporting them in separate sterile sealed trays or other sterile containers. Therefore, another container, in addition to the irrigation basin, must be made available to medical professionals during a medical procedure. This can be especially problematic as specific trays and surgical peripherals must be matched up.